In the summer of 1996, a time when I was 9 1/2 years old, my late uncle had given me a Science Fair 160-in-One electronics project kit from 1982, which began my journey in electronics. The 160-in-One offered a wealth of different components, from the common stuff like resistors, capacitors, transistors, diodes, and a 7-segment LED display, to the not-so-common stuff like discrete integrated circuits, solar panels, analog meters, and light-dependent resistors. One day, in my nine-and-a-half-year-old ignorance, I took the 160-in-One apart, which was something I deeply regretted... until now.

When I saw this 130-in-One at one of my favorite consignment shops, all those memories of 1996 came back to me, and so I didn't hesitate to bring it down from the store shelves. I asked the shop owner how much he wanted for it, and he wanted $10. It needed some work done on it, as a lot of the spring terminals were corroded - something that was fixed by soaking spring terminals in vinegar. The three panel LEDs also needed replacing, but I fortunately had replacements on hand. I also changed out the tuning control with a known working one. Despite their age, the rest of the components - including the two ICs and the three transistors - tested out fine.

Missing from the kit, of course, were the instruction manual, the wires, an earphone, and a black plastic tube that sits over the light-dependent resistor. The plastic tube allows light to fall onto the LDR from the front while blocking light from the sides. The instruction manual, fortunately, was easy to locate on the internet, and I opted to use up the rest of my printer's ink before installing the new ink cartridges. Once I had the instruction manual printed, I took my surplus of scrap wire from my parts bin, and I cut and stripped segments of wires while using the parts list (on the last page of the manual) as a guide for lengths. The earphone was salvaged from a transistor radio, and the plastic LDR shield was fashioned out of the cap of a dried-up pen.

Getting the 130-in-One back up to speed was a labor of love, but now that it's working and complete again, I hope to extend the experience to my nieces and nephews like my late uncle has done for me. ^^

It's worth noting that the 130-in-One cost about $30 in 1997, which is worth $60 in 2025.